


Cardinal Virtues

by Chestnut_filly



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genre: Ableism, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Femslash, Fic, POV Female Character, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 12:57:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chestnut_filly/pseuds/Chestnut_filly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People don't win Daisy's games. It's why Jordan doesn't play.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cardinal Virtues

**Author's Note:**

> So, the idea that Jordan suffers from vast, enrequited love for Daisy stuck me in a blinding flash of inspiration, and I was very disappointed in the internet when it failed to provide fic. So I wrote it myself!

If Jordan Baker is honest -and she is the most honest person she knows- she tossed her heart to Daisy Fay and lost it to Daisy Buchanan. Daisy has been her hero ever since Louisville. Most people don't know it, but Jordan began to play golf because Daisy made a throwaway comment about how _adorable_ the outfits were and how much she envied those sporting girls for being able to go out into the sun, and Jordan took that throwaway comment (as she always does, always has, because those throwaway comments are the things of Daisy she can pick up and hold on to) and ran with it. And to her surprise, she was _good_.

Here's something Daisy can't beat her at, something Daisy can admire her for. It scares her, a little, that she wants Daisy's admiration- and that she wants Daisy to admire her and only her. She's heard of Boston marriages, seen those significant glances when Aunt Lily comes to visit with her serving maid in tow. She's not an innocent, but she doesn't want to be an outcast, either. It's not so much the societal expectations -society's stuffy and boring anyhow- but she wouldn't get to see Daisy.

***

Jordan sees little enough of her in any case, because she's taken up with her pretty new officer beaux. Jordan can only slink into the parlor with her wartime-short hemlines so many times before Daisy grows annoyed with her -and if there's anything Jordan hates it's Daisy being annoyed with her. Even so, Daisy's envious looks at Jordan's muscle-toned, tanned calves, so unlike her hothouse flower legs, give Jordan the fortitude to smile at each successive officer-in-training hanging off Daisy's arm.

That one tournament where she nudged the ball, just the tiniest bit, just enough to get her a clear shot around the sand trap, had been the first time in weeks that she'd had Daisy's attention all to herself. That new boy, Gatty or Gatsby or something, had been hanging around persistently, and Daisy- Daisy had been hanging right back, not even noticing when Jordan bobbed her hair the way all the low-class girls in the cities had. But this was _her_ tournament, and Jordan just knew she could win if she could just change this one stroke. The ball was six inches to the left before she even noticed her feet moving, and _there_ was her shot, there it was. One gorgeous arc of a swing and the game was hers, and she skipped giddily across the green to the victor's tent, thankful her new bob hid the sweat on her neck, and that her brand-new stockings' seams were straight. Only, it turned out Daisy had left half way through. Even after she was handed the trophy, and had shaken her opponent's hand for the photo, Jordan kept glancing around the stands and into the refreshment tent, hoping she'd see Daisy's neat blond hair somewhere. She hadn't even cared when some sniveling caddy Jordan last remembered seeing somewhere around hole nine ran up to the steward and pointed at Jordan, when the eyes of the entire green turned to her.

Jordan was too suffocated by a blanket of unhappy anger to even care much, which turned out was the right thing for the situation.

"Never protest too much," her aunt said. "You did the right thing, Jordan. Nobody can accuse you if everyone who matters thinks you did rightly."

The whole incident made the society pages anyway, but Jordan, suffocating blanket only thickened by seeing the Gatsby boy and Daisy cooing in the car, weathered it with something that was not so much aplomb as heartbreak. In any case, it seemed to work.

"I don't know how you can stand it!" Daisy exclaimed, one afternoon when the Gatsby boy couldn't weasel out of training. "All those beastly reporters asking if you did it, how you did it." She tossed her head, newly-bobbed curls bouncing. " _I_ know you didn't do it, Jordan. You're too much of a sportswoman."

Jordan flushed with pride. Daisy thought she was honest. It didn't matter that she hadn't been there, because Daisy trusted her, Daisy thought she was honest. 

"You're just like Jay, you know," Daisy continued gaily, and Jordan barely caught the jerk of her head (like being slapped, every time, and damn Daisy for her lovely voice which said such lovely, awful things), "Always so poised and so… so honorable! I don't know how you do it, I can't, I'm sure."

***

And then Gatsby leaves, and Jordan takes a guilty pleasure in seeing Daisy drift around Louisville like a Wili from _Giselle_ , just because she sees her so much more often. Daisy takes up with all the boys and wounded veterans of the town, and dumps them like so much trash a week or two later, but Jordan lasts. Jordan is the one Daisy talks to, and asks to chaperone their visits, and recommends to handsome officers when they come calling. There are so many more throwaway comments to find and gather up for later inspection, even a run of Daisy's hand up Jordan's leg when she shows off her new silk stockings, miraculously procured from the midst of voluntary rationing. Jordan keeps that winning golf ball next to her bed. She glances over at it at night, sometimes, and thinks, _honest_. 

Daisy invites her over every day, and introduces her to whichever new boy it is that day as, "Jordan Baker, the wonderful sportswoman. You _must_ have heard of her, everyone has!" Jordan takes to affecting a sort of careless boredom around the new beaux. It wouldn't do to speak too proudly, after all. She lets the tilt of her chin do it for her.

***

Jordan is introduced to Tom that way, chin up, ennui wafting off her like perfume as Daisy gushes away in the background. He hears the whole speech from Daisy, and dismisses Jordan with nary a tilt of his head. Their relationship never warms much. 

Tom dislikes the amount of time she spends with Daisy, the way she does her hair, her pride, the amount of leg she shows. (Or, rather, he desires it, and reaches out with his great brutish hands to grab it, and, dismissed, affects as much disdain for Jordan as Jordan does for all things not involving Daisy.) Jordan dislikes the amount of time Tom spends with Daisy, the rough way he talks, how he thinks he can just grab anything and get away with it. He is careless with Daisy, and Jordan decides she hates him for it. 

She hates him even more when he lasts past the two-week mark that has been the standard for new young men since Gatsby was shipped out, and more when Daisy comes wafting into Jordan's parlor uninvited with a great brilliant-cut on her finger. She knows what he does with the hotel girls, and Jimmy Ellick's second daughter, and almost Jordan herself. He's not honest, and Jordan is honest to the bone. She has the trophy to prove it. Daisy's her true north, and everything else can go the way she hopes Jay Gatsby went.

Even after the wedding, when Daisy rips off her pearls and shoves them at Jordan, saying, "Get them off me, get them off me, I don't want them, just take them away!" and Jordan has carefully arranged the strands around the golf ball still on her nightstand, even then Jordan and Tom circle one another warily. Jordan manages to follow them to Chicago, and then to New York. If the manner in which she reaches these places is not altogether above-board, it doesn't matter. Daisy needs her, needs someone to be honest for her. And Jordan is the most honest person she knows. After all, isn't she the only one who really has Daisy's best interests at heart?

***

West Egg is sufficiently divorced from true society that Jordan could almost have missed Gatsby's return. It seems he's not dead after all- he's even been decorated, a process that most men give at least a lung or a few toes for. A lucky glance at a third-page column in the papers, a chance look at some chorus girl's quote about a _super-fun party_ , and the fateful stick of her eyes on the words _Jay Gatsby, Trimalchio of Long Island_. 

So Gatsby is alive, at the least, but Jordan doesn't know in what state. He was in the war, after all, and the war changes people. She allows herself to be dragged along to a party one spring evening by a fellow golfer, and manages not to see Gatsby at all. Disappointed, she hangs around until the very end, sitting on the railing of Gatsby's gaudy steps with a cigarette.

She thinks she can see Daisy's house across the bay, that headache-inducing green light Tom had pitched a fit about a few months ago. The cig burns down to the filter, and Jordan is just contemplating finding a chauffeur to drive her across the bay again when a tall man emerges from the shrubbery below the steps. He is wearing a suit of some garish color- pink or lavender, Jordan can't quite tell in the dim light- and seems to be steady on his feet. Ignoring the brisk wind blowing off the bay, he stands on the lawn for several minutes, staring across the water. Jordan is just about to announce herself and ask if he's feeling well (the alcohol seemed all right, but bootleg can be funny sometimes) when the man turns on his heel and strides back towards the party. The light from the windows illuminates his face just enough for Jordan to recognize Jay Gatsby. He's out of uniform, has a few deep lines visible even in the near-dark, and no longer walks like he's in formation. Jordan thinks it's lucky she saw his photo, or she never would have recognized him. 

Gatsby is lost in the bushes before she can say anything, not that she has any idea what she could say, and Jordan looks across the water, thinking.

The green light on Daisy's dock blinks.

***

Nick Carraway is sweet. Jordan feels a little sorry for him when Daisy flirts, because he is so clearly charmed and confused. She likes him well enough, even when he starts letting his glances linger on her longer than strictly necessary. She's getting tired of her current boy, anyway. Got to keep up appearances. 

Nick is dead inside in that way most of the young men seem to be these days, but he isn't careless with her. He keeps his mouth shut when he should, doesn't breathe a word about the lingering smog of scandal that hovers about her even now, doesn't mock her for spending all her time around Daisy. Jordan pities him for being drawn into the web of half-truths that surround Gatsby and Daisy, but doesn't bother telling him the story. He's honest as well as sweet, and she doesn't feel like helping him make a decision. He doesn't seem to like it, probably had the taste for it pounded out by mortar shells. 

So she likes him well enough, wishes he was there when she gets pulled aside by Gatsby next time she attends a party of his. Gatsby asks about Daisy with a feverish light in his eyes, pacing back and forth in the library. He says Daisy's name like the shape of it against his lips is torment. He asks her if she thinks Daisy would see him, if Daisy would come to him, if Daisy would love him.

Jordan answers noncommittally. She's honest about one thing, and that's Daisy. And Daisy Buchanan is not Daisy Fay. Jay Gatsby, though, is and has always been Jay Gatsby, and he's never going to get his heart back. It imparts a sort of kinship to their conversation- they're a brotherhood of two who've had Daisy Fay steal their hearts and had Daisy Buchanan never give them back. She thinks he might be the second honest person she's ever met. Nick isn't really honest because honesty requires an opinion about _something_ , but Gatsby, Gatsby believes so fiercely that Jordan can't bring herself to muster her usual contempt. 

She isn't even jealous. Daisy Fay isn't Daisy Buchanan, and Jordan knows that, and Gatsby doesn't. They're both attending the same tournament, but he's a player and she's the referee. Winning might be out of the question for her, but she can't exactly lose, either. She's above the mud of the field. Gatsby can lose, and Jordan feels something like sympathy for him. People don't win Daisy's games. It's why Jordan doesn't play.

Back outside to Nick, and Jordan tells him that she heard something extraordinary. At home, she looks at the golf ball on her nightstand and thinks, _honest_.

***

If Nick were an animal, he'd be a cat. A dead one. He might have the social skills of a blade of asparagus and as much interest in what goes on around him, but Gatsby fascinates him all the same. 

Jordan tells him Gatsby's story, lets him take her on dates in the city, lets him play the lover. It's…nice, in a way. Being doted on like this isn't something she's used to, and it's pleasant. If Nick wasn't so all-consumingly blind in his recording, camera-like manner to the way this sham of romanticism must go, Jordan thinks they could be friends. After a fashion, at least. He makes her smile, sometimes. 

Jordan orchestrates the meeting between Gatsby and Daisy, encourages Daisy to return again, and again. Daisy goes, and Tom's heavy hand is lifted. When she sees Gatsby, Daisy belongs more to herself than she has in ages. Jordan might not be able to keep Daisy, but neither can Gatsby, whose very presence is the final piece of evidence that Tom doesn't own her either. For the first time in so long, Daisy belongs to Jordan as much as to anyone else.

The summer days melt by in a bizarre, happiness-induced daze. Daisy really laughs for the first time in years, and Jordan laughs right back. Nick's kisses and Gatsby's lovesick stares aren't such a heavy cross to bear.

***

The whole house of cards comes tumbling down that sweltering afternoon in the city. Pulled out of her normal lassitude by worry over Daisy, Jordan cracks jokes, inserts herself between Daisy and Tom, distracts Nick. It's her duty, really, as referee of this game they're all playing. A fight is brewing, and Tom really is a hulking brute. 

Jordan just wants what's best for Daisy, who has never claimed to be honest. Daisy will never spare her a glance, but the least Jordan can do is to keep her laughing in her lovely, awful voice. 

It doesn't work. For an instant, Jordan is so incandescently furious with Daisy that she almost forgets the feel of Daisy's hands on her legs, her throwaway comments and admiration. How dare Daisy topple this precarious scale where Jordan gets at least as much of her as anyone else, where at least some of them are _happy_ with their lot.

Gatsby dies. Nick leaves her over the telephone. (Again Jordan wishes that Nick could see that the honesty he so prides himself on is just refusal to decide anything, which is just carelessness. She thinks they could have been friends, after a fashion.) Over a plate of cold chicken, Daisy steps willingly back behind the bars Tom erected. It is evident enough now that Tom doesn't own her, but the playing field isn't the wide-open beauty it was while Gatsby balanced out the power differentials. Jordan wishes there was a ball she could nudge just a few inches aside, and _fix_ things. 

She doesn't go to the funeral, and when Nick calls her she tells him she's found someone else. It's even mostly true. While it was nice to have Daisy Fay again for a bit, Daisy Buchanan is back to stay, and she plays for keeps.

"I don't know how you do it," she tells Jordan, reclined on a couch in another fluttery white dress. "I just don't know how you stay so honest when even Jay was a liar. _I'm_ a liar, you know."

Jordan looks out the window down to the prosperous curve of the bay. If she squints against the winter glare off the water, she can just see the spires of Gatsby's old house, now let by the widow of some arms manufacturer. "I know," she replies. Jordan has always been the most honest person she knows, and Daisy Buchanan knows it too.

 

fin.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Cardinal Virtues](https://archiveofourown.org/works/669666) by [Chestnut_filly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chestnut_filly/pseuds/Chestnut_filly)
  * [I'm choosing my confessions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7247287) by [acquario](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acquario/pseuds/acquario)




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